


Taking Care

by voksen



Series: WKverse [65]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Infidelity, Knifeplay, M/M, Shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-22
Updated: 2009-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-28 09:29:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/pseuds/voksen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Schuldig needs a place to spend the night and maybe something else, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Care

"Let me in," Schuldig says. There's no power in the words themselves, no compulsion, but Farfarello stands aside anyway, holding the door. He's never seen Schuldig look like this: obviously tired, dark rings under his eyes, hair straggly and plastered to his face (it's been raining all day, cold, thin drizzle), _scruffy_ , wearing a tattered pea coat and jeans that could only charitably be called vintage.

Behind him, he hears Sally come into the hallway, hears her sharp little gasp, the hesitation in her voice as she says "Hello, Schuldig..."

Her fear sets him on edge; he knows how Schuldig reacts to that kind of thing. Except he _doesn't_ : he looks at her over Farfarello's shoulder, makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat.

"Go make tea," Farfarello tells her, never taking his eyes off Schuldig; he doesn't trust him around Sally, not even if he didn't take advantage just then. She scurries off, heels clacking against the floor.

Shutting the door behind himself, Schuldig leans against it, closes his eyes, sighs.

"Is anyone following you?" Farfarello asks bluntly. He should have asked before.

His eyes open, just a crack, the blue surprisingly sharp. "What would you do if I said yes?"

Farfarello doesn't have an immediate answer to that - considering it seriously, there are too many variables, too things he doesn't know.

Schuldig picks the non-answer out of his mind and laughs, short and barking. "So don't worry about it, then."

Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to; it's a lesson he should have learned, _had_ learned, but somehow he'd... forgotten it. It's uncomfortable. Schuldig _being_ here is uncomfortable, throws off his life by standing there, dripping rainwater onto Sally's rug, stinking of stale cigarettes. That much he can fix, even if he isn't ready to turn Schuldig back out.

Silently, he leads Schuldig to the bathroom, shuts him in. There's the thump of Schuldig's bag hitting the floor and almost immediately afterward the water turns on, the pipes clanking loudly. He stands and watches the door for a moment, then turns his back and goes to the kitchen.

Sally's got the water on, but instead of just waiting for it to boil, she's making cheese sandwiches, piling them up neatly on a plate with precise little movements. "He looked hungry, didn't he?" she says, looking up at him as he comes in, her eyes oddly pleading. He doesn't understand.

 _She wants to be sure you won't run off back to Schwarz with me_ , Schuldig tells him; even in his mind, he sounds rough, tired. _I am hungry, though. Bring me those._

"Did he."

The kettle whistles and she spins to get it, pouring the boiling water into two mugs, holding them out to him silently. There's something strange about her eyes, her slightly-parted lips, but he doesn't understand it.

It's been more than a year, and he knows so much about her, more even than the _everything_ she'd shown him before, and he still doesn't understand her.

He takes the tea, picks up the plate of sandwiches, and leaves. It makes him feel uncomfortably like a waiter. Schuldig's always been good at putting people off-balance, at getting them set up. Somewhere, half-buried in the back of his mind, there's the memory of Schuldig looking at him cold, assessing, like a bit of unpleasant work.

But when he shoulders the bathroom door open, Schuldig's got one of Sally's faded-rose towels wrapped around his hair in a makeshift turban and Farfarello's own plain white one hanging low around his hips, and he doesn't look at all like he's planning anything besides what to steal out of the medicine cabinet.

"Come in or go away," Schuldig says, pulling a handful of things out of the cabinet and swinging it shut. "You're letting all the steam out and I just fucking got warm again."

Farfarello blinks, puts the sandwich plate and one of the mugs down on the edge of the counter, and sits on the closed toilet with the other.

Schuldig leans past him and knocks the door closed, grabbing a sandwich on the way back and tearing off a huge mouthful. _Not bad,_ he comments, mouth too full to speak aloud, tossing the bitten half back on the plate. He swallows hard and turns back to the mirror above the counter, unwinding the towel from his hair and wiping a broad streak clear of fog, then peering at himself.

"Why are you here?" Farfarello asks finally, after a long moment of watching Schuldig preen. He picks the teabags out of his mug and throws them past Schuldig into the sink, taking a long sip.

"Needed a place to stay the night." Schuldig gives him a toothy smile in the mirror, then reaches for the can of shaving cream he'd taken from the cabinet, spraying out a palmful of foam, smoothing it over his face.

Farfarello waits; Schuldig likes to talk too much for him to leave it at that, he thinks, or else he's changed more than he thinks is possible.

"Smartass," Schuldig says, but he doesn't sound completely unfriendly. "It's the truth." He hooks the wet towel from the counter, wipes his hands, and tosses it at Farfarello.

Setting his tea down on the floor, Farfarello catches the towel - and his eye narrows as the subtle, flowery smell of Sally's shampoo rises up from the wet terry. It had been so overpowered by the soap-and-steam, as faint a scent as it is, that he hadn't noticed it before.

He doesn't like the idea of Schuldig going around smelling like his Sally.

Schuldig laughs at him, hitching himself up onto the counter where the towel had lain, and picks up Farfarello's straight razor, flicking it open casually. The steel glints, catching the soft light in the bathroom and seeming to refine it, and he tests the edge against his thumb. "Does she take care of you?" he asks.

It's sharp, of course, and Farfarello is more annoyed by the implied insult than he is by the verbal one. Schuldig is gaming him, of course, playing him against himself, _trying_ to be a pain in the ass. But then, from Schuldig, that literally means nothing; still, it's probably best to make sure they're still clear on things. "She's mine. I watch out for her."

"Not what I meant," Schuldig grins, raising his thumb to his mouth and licking the little trace of blood away. It catches Farfarello's attention immediately; somehow he can't seem to look away from the red smear it leaves over Schuldig's lower lip, brilliant against the white of the foam.

Instead of elaborating, though, Schuldig tips his head back, sets the razor to his throat. That's a pretty image - and Schuldig knows it, draws it out a little too long to be accidental before slowly pulling down, scraping over his skin.

Farfarello watches, listens, his hands knotted tight in the towel: the quicksilver flash of light on steel handled by someone who knows what he's doing, the rasp of blade on flesh.

Schuldig shaves with his eyes closed, but he never misses a spot, never sets the razor wrong. He's halfway done before Farfarello realizes Schuldig's using _him_ as a mirror, watching himself through Farfarello's eye. He weighs the possibilities, the benefits of looking away or not.

He keeps watching.

The grin he gets for it is lopsided, and it's odd, how fast he readjusts to Schuldig knowing everything he thinks, how easily it is to slide back into the expectation that nothing is private.

But Schuldig tilts his head and the razor skims over his neck again, slow, teasing, and Farfarello doesn't care about speculation anymore; he can practically see it slice in, the blood flow, almost like a vision. It's been a long time since anyone's tried to take Sally away from him, a long time since he's had to fight for her, at least a month.

It's over too soon, leaving Schuldig cleanshaven, looking much more himself, though his hair is still damp and lank and the circles under his eyes haven't faded. He clicks the razor closed, drops it, runs his hand over his face, checking the closeness of the shave, wiping off the last bits of shaving cream. Satisfied, he opens his eyes again, glances at Farfarello - and yes, this is the Schuldig he remembers, neat, calculating, constantly looking for something to do. "So, does she take care of you?" he asks again, and this time the way he looks at Farfarello is obvious enough for anyone to see what he means. Schuldig's never been great at subtlety when he's not just being obscure.

Reaching out across the space between them with his bare foot, Schuldig nudges the towel off his lap. He's still holding the edge, but the rest of it falls to the floor, heavy and damp, dragging solidly across him like a caress. The suggestion, the feel, the smell, the memory of razorblade on skin: he's half hard even though it's just Schuldig, cock stiffening slowly in his water-damp pants.

And then Schuldig's moving, fast as thought, off the counter and across the small room, to kneel at Farfarello's feet on the shabby rug.

Farfarello could fight him off, could overpower him, kill him, and maybe he _should_ \- but Schuldig's hands are as sure in undressing him as Sally's are shy, and then his _mouth_... He drops the towel, winds his hands in Schuldig's long hair instead, pulls him closer. "I'm not coming back. Not leaving her."

Schuldig swallows around him as Farfarello pulls his head down. His throat is so fucking tight, his face pressed against Farfarello's thighs and stomach as smooth as a girl's, his tongue slick on the underside of Farfarello's cock sweet and hot and perfect, like nothing else in the world. _Did I ask you to?_


End file.
